CES 2013USB 3.0 – aka SuperSpeed USB – is set to become more super-speedy, with a new specification scheduled for a mid-2013 release that will provide a one-two punch intended to greatly improve its theoretical throughput.

Google has ditched a much talked-about anti-censorship service in China just six months after launch, in what could be viewed as the web giant making key concessions over the protection of online freedoms.

Connecticut twins Aric Ryan Hale and Sean Peter Hale welcomed in 2013 in fine style after being arrested for scrapping over whose turn it was to make the beast with two backs with a woman described by cops as their "shared" girlfriend.

Femtocells, which extend 3G networks using domestic broadband, have been around for a few years now, and while only one operator will take your money for one, the others will furnish you with one if you complain loudly enough. Now that most of the big UK providers each have their own gear, we thought we'd see whose tiny cell offers the biggest service.

The first rigid airship to be built since the 1930s is about to commence trials in California: and the Pelican prototype also features a new technology, never yet flown, which could finally change things for lighter-than-air craft and see the leviathans of the skies make a serious comeback at last.

CES 2013Not content with squeezing out foreign rivals in their domestic market, China’s homegrown smartphone giants are set to make a splash overseas this month with some impressive handset designs including the world’s thinnest smartphone and a giant 6.1in phone/tablet hybrid.

Live vidDe Vere hotels had legacy systems, systems that needed updating but, most of all, it had lots of servers doing different things. Having grown by acquisition, it needed to consolidate if it wanted to realise its plans for customer service. It did this using a private cloud created by ANS Group, based on NetApp's FlexPod.

CES 2013Nvidia’s Project Shield seems positively daft at first thought. Who in their right mind would launch a new handheld gaming device today? If Sony and Nintendo can’t win over the millions of folk who play games on phones and tablets with their dedicated gaming handhelds - and very strong gaming brands - how the heck can a manufacturer of graphics chips?

Making a laptop with a screen that spins within its bezel isn’t a new idea. Early in 2011, Dell tried the trick with its Inspiron Duo netbook, but sadly that proved to be a woefully poor device. Now Dell is trying again, this with Ultrabook hardware and Windows 8 as the basic ingredients.

CES 2013It sounds so promising: a "revolutionary paper tablet computer" that will completely change "the way people work with tablets and computers". Alas, the PaperTab, a concept device lauded today by "printed electronics" firm Plastic Logic, isn’t quite the gadget the company is pitching it as.

Brazilian prison wardens admit they have little chance of discovering who was behind a cunning plan to smuggle a mobile phone into the slammer in Arapiraca, south west of Recife, given that the mule is highly unlikely to talk.

The government's current fixation with pushing for the deployment of faster broadband connections to most of the UK's population by 2015 should not shape its future policy, a leading Tory think tank has argued.

CES 2013If the world’s television makers are eager enough to try to convince World+Dog to buy a 4K x 2K TV, the world’s market watchers are no less keen to suggest the proponents of Ultra HD will be successful in the near future, with sales rocketing five years from now.

Disk and flash controller maker Marvell, which also manufactures various other semi-conductor chippery wares, is not having a great start to 2013. The firm, which has just launched a flash-caching product and invested in an SSD maker, was hit with a crushing $1.17bn damages award 10 days ago for infringing Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) patents.

Astrophysicists researching planets within the systems of binary stars - where one star orbits another - have found that the further apart the stellar twins are, the more their planetary systems are susceptible to violent disruptions. In simulated scenarios, distant binary star systems flung away the planets under their influence, sending them spinning off into the blackness.

Chip-maker Advanced Micro Devices continues to rejigger its executive team to reflect changes it is making in its business to attack new markets and get its channel partners peddling current and future products.

Americans are consuming more media on more kinds of devices than ever before, but plain old television still rules the roost, according to the latest statistics from market analytics firm the Nielsen Company.